Western Oregon

 Radio Club Inc.

D-Star Repeater Information

The WORC D-Star system consists of three D-Star voice repeaters and one D-Star data repeater. Frequency information is found on the web page explaining the repeater list information.  The WORC D-Star systems are open repeaters, available to any licensed amateur operator for local use. Registration on the WB7DZG D-Star Gateway is NOT required for local use.

To access the world wide D-Star system, registration on a single gateway server, anywhere, is required. By convention, the Gateway sponsors desire that you register on a gateway in your home area. Gateway administrators will not normally accept registrations from callsigns of operators from outside their local service area.  If you have registered on any other gateway system, please do not attempt to register with the WORC Gateway server. Your request will not be approved.

If you are traveling in the WORC service area and have purchased D-Star equipment, you should still register on the D-Star system nearest to your home. Most Gateway Administrators utilize on line D-Star registration, so you should be able to register on your home area system on the internet.

 

Registrations without a suitable Email address will not be approved.

TURN ON YOUR COOKIES WHEN REGISTERING.

The WORC has installed the latest dplus V2.2 software, allowing use by DV-Dongles and linking with reflectors and other gateways. Please do not connect to reflectors for long periods of time, this is a shared system and should be available most of the time for local use

D-Star repeater addressing:

 

D-Star digital voice repeaters are unlike FM analog repeaters. When you key your

D-Star transmitter, your message may not be heard by everyone listening to the repeater. Or your message may be heard by anyone listening to several repeaters on your local system, OR your message might go beyond your local area to another repeater in another part of the world.

 

Control of your message destination is done by utilizing callsign addressing which is embedded within the digitized voice message when it is transmitted. There are four separate callsign addresses which may affect your message routing.

 

Urcall: The ultimate destination of your message. This may be an individuals callsign, or for an open message you can set this to CQCQCQ, which will be audible to any receiving station.

 

Rptr1: This is necessary to use a repeater to convey your message. This will normally be set to the local repeater on the frequency you are transmitting on. The callsign will also contain a suffix letter to indicate which port you are operating on. This callsign will also be used to route replies to you by the station you are calling.

 

Rptr2: This second repeater is also needed for routing of messages if you are locally crossbanding your digital message or if you are utilizing your local Gateway to send a message to another city or country. This callsign will also be used to route replies to you by the station you are calling.

 

Mycall: This is your own callsign, used to tell stations receiving your message who sent it, and utilized within the D-Star system to route replies back to your own station.

 

Correctly setting any required callsigns will have a direct effect on your success in making use of the D-Star repeater system. Most operators set their Urcall for CQCQCQ most of the time to enable contact on the local system with minimal fuss.

If you experience difficulties with the D-Star system on your first attempts, before blaming the repeater, please check your own call sign settings and be certain you are set correctly. Also understand the population of D-Star operators is somewhat small, you do need someone to talk to. Calls in the mid day on a workday may not be heard, as well as calls in the dark of night.

 

Read your radio manual, check the various D-Star web sites and spend enough effort to understand the callsign addressing scheme. That effort will pay off in more efficient communications.

 

This web site will help you learn more about D-Star addressing:

 

http://www.arrl-al.org/D-STAR_radio_setup6.pdf

05-25-2009

Want to try out your new D-Star radio ?

 

Our unofficial test and rag chew time is every Tuesday evening at 1930h local time.

 

Set yourcall to CQCQCQ and Rptr1 to the local repeater and call for contacts.

 

 

Good Amateur D-Star Practice

 

¨ Before activating node linking please announce your intentions on the local system. Let other local users know who is using the system and what you are doing. Other users may not have a display on their radio or may be mobile, preventing their use of the Tx messages. Announcing your activities lets all the users know what may be happening.

 

¨ If you link to another system or a reflector, monitor the activities on the repeater continuously. Drop the linking if local communications are affected or may be affecting another system. Drop the linking if you cannot continuously monitor activities on the system.

 

¨ If you discover the WB7DZG repeater linked, ask on the air who is using the system. If, in a reasonable time, no station answers locally, make any changes you desire.

 

¨ Do not quick key your radio.

 

¨ When transmitting allow enough time for your D-Star header to be transmitted and acted upon before speaking.

 

¨ Use Tx messaging for your name and location information during net operations.

 

¨ Priorities for communications

             1) Emergency traffic related to safety of life or property

             2) Scheduled Local Net activities

             3) Intentional station to station communications, linked or local

             4) Unscheduled local station to station communications ( ragchewing )

             5) Linked monitoring of a reflector or another gateway regardless of the                               reason.

            

¨ When operating D- PRS set your radio for PTT transmitting to avoid unintentional interference with D-Star voice users. Do not use GPS automatic transmitting.

 

¨ Use of the D-Star slow speed data feature can cause interference to other users. Use slow speed data on the repeaters only during controlled nets or on simplex frequencies.